Blog Stats

Visitors Jul 2012 to Mar 2015

Tag Archives: Fujifilm X100F

These are my best set of pictures from our autumn visit to Sweden. It was a day of clear blue skies and cold weather but beautiful colours. Sundborn is only 20 minutes from Falun and a location full of photographic opportunities – especially reflections in the river. After taking the tour of the beautiful and iconic Carl Larsson-gården we had a picnic in the sunshine on the lawns of Stora Hyttnäs and then took the Culture Trail north to Sundborn Kyrka and Toftan.

Sundborn’s Culture Trail

The first picture shows the vivid autumn colours in the trees and vegetation along the river bank south of the Carl Larsson-gården. It’s pretty much the view you get of the river from the gardens themselves. They’re really nice to stroll around whilst you wait for your guided tour of the house.

Autumn Colours, Sundborn

The culture trail takes you along the river: stopping either at interesting locations where Larsson painted or the other historical sites of Sundborn. The hydro-power station is one of those sites, it was built just after 1900 and is located on the rapids a short walk from Larsson’s house – he provided the sketches for the design of the building and got his electric power from there. This is the view of the power station from downstream.

The Power Station, Sundborn

On the upstream side are these impressive sluices that control the flow of water into the turbines. There’s a walkway over the river so you pass right next to them. Their reflections are pictured here.

Power Station Sluices, Sundborn

Across the water you’ll see the tiled roofs of the old farm buildings that feature in some of Larsson’s paintings. They give you a nice taste of the picturesque nature of the old town that the trail takes you through.

Roof reflections, Sundborn

The next picture shows the buildings along Kyrkvägen that front on to the river. It’s taken from the opposite bank on the pathway along to the old wash house. It’s a very picturesque setting.

Looking across the Sundbornsån, Sundborn

When you reach the old wash house – it’s now a sauna – you can look back along the river. There’s a lovely composition where the trees frame the river that recedes away from the viewer. I was lucky because a scattering of light cumulus clouds also provided a top and bottom frame to complete the picture.

Looking down the Sundbornsån, Sundborn

Once you’ve walked through the old town to the church you get lovely views of the lake – Toftan – that opens up before you.

Toftan, Sundborn

I took this last picture when we got back to Larsson’s house. It’s called Summer’s End because it has a real end-of-season feel to it. The boats and canoe belong to the relatives of Larsson who still have summer houses on the property. Soon their river craft will be stored away for the winter.

Summer’s End, Sundborn

The pictures were all taken using the Velvia Vivid setting on my Fujifilm X100F. It gives a great depth of colour – especially the blues. I used my two converter lenses – wide angle and tele converter – for the pictures.

This past few weeks in Sweden I’ve been using my Fujifilm X100F exclusively. It always takes me a while to adjust to new light and compositions and the switch from late winter in South Africa to late summer in Sweden is quite drastic. That’s one reason why I’ve been using monochrome – it’s helped me to capture the light.

When we arrived I opened up my parcel from Fuji with the wide and tele conversion lenses I’d also bought. We went out berry picking on the first weekend to a beautiful location called Karlsbo – it’s about a half hour drive from Falun in Dalarna. I was keen to use the wide angle converter and so I screwed it on to the standard lens and took a lot of pictures that day – this is one of them. It is a vertical panorama of two images one stacked above the other.

Karsbo Panorama, Dalarna

This second picture was taken on the beautiful Bohuslän coast at Ramsvikslandet. It was a stunningly clear day after a major storm had passed through. Everything I was seeing was swept clean. The granite rocks and islands were scraped bare by glaciers and the sky was a clear blue with hardly a cloud. For this picture I used the tele converter so as to zoom in on the cottages at Fykan across the close cropped grass in the foreground.

Fykan, Ramsvikslandet

You couldn’t get much more of a contrast than with this next image. It’s taken late one evening after sunset and it’s a view of the Bäveån that flows through Uddevalla. The river has a series of old mills along its course and this one hunches above a broad sweeping curve with the rapids in the background.

Bäveån Mill Pond, Uddevalla

The last couple of pictures were taken from the outlook above Gustafsberg – it’s has a lovely outlook west over the fjord to the Uddevalla Bron and east to the harbour entrance.

The same thing happens to my photography whenever I come to Sweden. I think it’s either the impact of all that Scandinavian design on my artistic sense or maybe its all of the conformity and regularity of life here. Here’s a great example.

Sensommar i Sverige

Since I arrived in Falun a couple of days ago It’s been raining a bit and so the summer furniture was stacked up (neatly of course) on the altan just outside the kitchen window. It looked so typically ‘sensommar’ – late summer – that I went out to get the picture. The composition just jumped out at me. Here’s another.

The Balcony

Balcony Patterns

I was out on the balcony trying out new settings on the Fujifilm X100F and, once again, the shapes and lines drew me in. This time the light was changing as I took the picture (the sun came out!!) and so I could experiment with different compositions.

For the next six weeks I’ll be working only with the Fujifilm. I’ve found that’s the best way to learn what a camera will do. In the end I will be using it without thinking at all about the settings. Also it means that I can use the two new lens extensions I have just bought for it!